“Hold my calls, Minka.” I keep my eyes down and sign the log with a flourish I don’t feel.
“Always,” she purrs, a hand brushing mine. It lands on bone, not blood. I can see her batting her lashes at me, but I ignore it.
Mercifully, Ale appears from the elevator bank a second later, in all black and sharper than the marble lining the floor.He takes one look at my face and steers me toward the private lift.
“We should loop in our fathers,” he says under his breath. “Not just about La Spada Nera, but about the shooter on your ass. And Serena?—”
“I know.” I jab the keycard, doors sliding shut. “Just not yet.”
His brows notch. “Why not?”
Because I don’t want them folding my femme fatale into a problem set and solving her. Not until I do. Because the second Nico and Marco Rossi taste blood, they’ll raze the city to salt.
“Call it instinct,” I whisper. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
“Matty…” He rubs his jaw, all leader and older brother at once. “You’re asking me to sit on a live grenade.”
“It won’t blow.” I meet his eyes. “Not if I’m holding it.”
He studies me, doesn’t like it, and nods anyway. “Forty-eight hours, cuz.”
I give him a sharp nod.
“You sure you’re okay?” He eyes me like only he can.
“I’m fine.”
I don’t speak another word untilPapà’s executive assistant opens the doors to the boardroom a few minutes later. It’s cut from the same block as a judge’s bench. Floor-to-ceiling glass. Skyline like a trophy case. Our fathers sit at either end of the table—Nico Rossi, mypapà, in slate, cool as winter and Marco Rossi in navy, warmth that has edges. Gemini and Valentino capos line the sides. Antonio leans in a corner like a rumor with a pulse and Raf scrolls a tablet, bored on purpose. The Ferraras have recently joined our ranks, and I must admit, they’re a good addition.
“Finally,” Uncle Marco grumbles. “We were about to start without you.”
“We almost did,”Papàanswers, eyeing me. “Sit.”
I slide into my chair and jack in, a laptop, phone, and the quiet network that answers only to me. A wall screen blooms with a heat map of our infrastructure: ports, warehouses, shell companies and a constellation of legit enterprises that keep the rest clean.
Giorgio, the head of our digital security, a thin man with the soul of a safe, taps his pen. “We logged a spike at 02:13. Four separate probes. Same signature across nodes in TriBeCa, the Red Hook warehouse, and the Mayfair office in London. Brief. Surgical.”
“Proof-of-life, not smash and grab,” one of the other tech guys cuts in, arms crossed.
“La Spada Nera.” I say the name before the room can breathe. “It smells like them.”
Alessandro shifts beside me, his unease radiating from the sharp black suit.
A murmur rolls through the table. La Spada Nera, the Black Blade, was an up-and-coming crime syndicate until Alessandro nearly decimated their ranks a few months ago when he thought they shot at Rory. Turns out, it was the Quinlans. We’ve all been waiting for the backlash, and now, it looks like it’s here.
Stefano, one of Marco’s menwho tracks European chatter, lifts a shoulder. “We’ve had eyes on them since Christmas. Same discipline. Same patience. Their guy in Long Island went silent last week, which usually means he’s working. Or dead.”
“Have they infiltrated any of our routes?” Marco asks.
“Port manifests are clean,” Raf chimes in. “Customs flagged nothing unusual. Either they ghosted the inspectors or they weren’t after our freight.”
“Financials?”Papà.
“Clear. Our payment rails show no exfiltration,” Giorgio says. “If this was recon, they were mapping the corridors, not the vault.”
“They’re looking for doors,” Ale concludes. “And for who opens them.”
I should say something clever about zero-day exploits, about IMEI churn, about the burner handsets that ping around our properties like moths. Instead, the air tastes like wet concrete and gun oil. The alley presses in, the assassin’s blue eyes…
